It’s too hard!

Oh, my goodness, this calorie-counting business is a real faff, isn’t it? Thank heavens it’s only 2 days a week. I’m trying to plan for tomorrow – we have elected to have a curry as we didn’t curry yesterday. I’ve browsed  The Skinny 5:2 Diet Curry Recipe Book and fell upon Persian Chicken Curry (page 44). A recipe for 4 persons, it is calorie counted at 290 calories per serving.

Fine.

However the recipe calls for 500 g of chicken breast meat and my pack in the freezer has 350 g. We are aiming for one meal again so I have room for manoeuvre on the day’s allowances – but in which direction should I go?

• Halve the recipe and use 250 g of chicken, give 100 g chickie to the cats. That’s wasteful
• Cook half the recipe, adding the extra meat and using our spare calories for this additional protein. Sensible approach perhaps and minimal maths required. However the minuscule amount of rice we could add would scarcely be worth the effort of cooking
• Cook the full recipe using only 350 g chicken and work out how many calories can be put towards a side of rice. Bit more maths needed for this one but I think perhaps our chosen option.

I begin to see why folks spend money on bars, shakes and ready meals. I am. Honestly!

However, let us bite the bullet in this particular case. I shall turn to my trusty friend, the Excel spreadsheet.

Excel tells me that by reducing the quantity of meat in the 4 serving curry, I reduce each serving from 290 to 250 kilocalories. We are choosing to make up our allowance in the same meal and by using rice. Apparently I can cook 140 g of basmati to do this. It’s not a lot by comparison to the amount I normally cook!

In fact it’s a little over half of what I normally cook, though we don’t eat all of it and the dogs and hens benefit the following day as a norm. So we’ll probably be eating two thirds of the rice that we normally have for lunch. That’s not too bad, is it. Mr L’s spare 100 calories will go in the form of milk and sugar in his coffee, which he seems reluctant to give up despite the gift of a packet of Xylitol.

I’m reserving the right to abandon the rice plan and to dry fry some cauli instead. But that really makes my head hurt.

Spinning tomorrow (post-curry, I must apologise!) and Hugo won’t be completed after all. It’s amazing how much time these calorie things take up, not to mention the treadmill. I’m going for a walk in Thailand this afternoon 🙂

Hugo has 6 more rows of border to do before casting off. I’m going to town on Tuesday but Hugo is far too heavy to come with me. I have to find me a ferry project asap.

Mr L managed to find some chestnuts, albeit in a highly expensive form, yesterday so we’re making his cabbage bake thing today. I hope it is as good as we both recall.

There may be photographs. If it turns out attractively.